The story of Cirque Éloize is an artistic adventure that began in the Magdalen Islands in the early 1990s when Jeannot Painchaud and seven young artists decided to found a circus company. Innovative from the start, Cirque Éloize distinguished itself by choosing to move away from the traditional big top to integrate a vast global network of theatrical distribution, driven by a constant desire to imagine new narrative forms. Its history is also one of circus innovation, thanks to the invention of the Cyr wheel by Daniel Cyr, co-founder and early collaborator of Cirque Éloize.

The company’s first creation was born in 1993. Four years later, Cirque Éloize embarked on its first major international tour with its second show, Excentricus. In 1999, collaboration with Italian artist Daniele Finzi Pasca led to iconic shows such as Nomade, Rain, and Nebbia, elevating Cirque Éloize’s reputation to a must-see status. Between 2009 and 2019, the company continued to innovate with iconic shows like ID, Cirkopolis, Saloon, and HOTEL, achieving worldwide success. In Quebec, the show Serge Fiori, Seul Ensemble won over both audiences and critics by paying tribute to the universe of Serge Fiori and the group Harmonium.

 

The pandemic accelerated the company’s diversification, which had begun a few years earlier. In 2020, Cirque Éloize released its film Sept Moments de Joie, and the following year, it inaugurated its first immersive exhibition, Sous les Glaces with Mario Cyr, in its studios in Montreal, and later at the Quebec City Convention Centre, attracting over 100,000 visitors.

 

Today, Cirque Éloize consolidates its position as a multidisciplinary company of international renown, offering a diverse creative range in its studios at Dalhousie Station in Montreal and around the world.

Dalhousie Station, built by the Canadian Pacific Railway between 1883 and 1884, played a key role in Montreal’s railway development, serving as the starting point for the first transcontinental journey of the Pacific Express in 1886 to Western Canada. The journey, spanning 4,700 kilometers, took six days to reach Port Moody, British Columbia. Replaced by Viger Station in 1898, Dalhousie Station later served as a warehouse before being acquired by the city of Montreal in 1984.

Renovated in 1986, Dalhousie Station hosted the National Circus School, and since 2004, it has been home to Cirque Éloize’s headquarters and creative studios. These spaces, renovated in 2013, have become a hub of creation, exchange, and encounters for the circus community and emerging artists. In 2021, the acquisition of state-of-the-art equipment, including a 360-degree video mapping projection system, enabled Cirque Éloize to diversify its activities and optimize the use of its studios. This significant upgrade now allows the company to operate its studios to their full potential, hosting around a hundred annual events and diverse projects in a unique immersive environment in Montreal.